Whilst the internet is an essential tools for children as they grow up in the modern world, there are always concerns about access to undesirable materials. In school, we have taken positive steps to deal with this risk. As part of your child’s curriculum, and the development of computing skills, we provide access to the internet only in teacher supervised lessons and activities. Our school internet access provider operates a filtering system that restricts access to inappropriate materials and all internet use in school is monitored. Any e-safety incidents are reported and logged according to the school’s e-safety policy.
We understand that no filtering or monitoring system is 100% effective and so educating children is our most important method of keeping our community safe. A thorough and age appropriate e-safety curriculum is delivered to teach all children how to stay safe when using computing technology in school or at home. This learning is delivered through explicit e-safety lessons in addition to contextual teaching of online safety throughout the curriculum.
Each half term a new topic is covered, which is appropriate to the children's age and computing topic that they are studying. Further e-safety teaching is provided through Computing lessons, PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) lessons and reinforced in different areas of the curriculum, whenever technology is used. Additionally, there are assemblies throughout the year on new and important e-safety topics so children and adults can stay up to date with new e-safety risks and concerns.
In Years 3 and 4, the children have annual sessions with a Police Officer from the Bradford Cyber Team to give additional information and advice on keeping safe online. In Years 5 and 6, the children have these sessions in addition to annual sessions on Cyberbullying.
As a school, we celebrate 'Safer Internet Day' every February, which gives a whole-school focus to current issues and themes relating to using the internet safely and responsibly.